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Step by Step/Issue 9
This is Issue #9 of Step by Step. This is the third issue of Volume Two. Stalemate A large crow streamlined over the dazzling streets of Indianapolis. It soured through the gloomy rain clouds that hung over the city. There were large, metallic birds passing through the air below the crow in retreat. Black Hawks. The crow glided through the plumes of smoke that had accumulated below the storm clouds. It swooped down and every now and then ducked under a tree branch. The crow sometimes would twitch its head to the side to watch out for any danger. There were more people out in the streets than usual. More than the crow had ever seen in its great six years of life. The large crow cawed as its claws snatched onto a broken down tree branch. The crow surveyed the streets. There were at the most one hundred people at a given area. All of them were after something. A goal which the crow had never thought would be useful for it. The bird had seen much in its time, and was about to leave a legacy behind it, one which her young would hatch into. The crow had a growing hunger in its belly. It switched vision to the oak tree's thick trunk. In the vagueness of sunlight, the crow stood out next to a crevasse in the trunk. It cawed once more and fluttered its downy, feathery neck before then the lumbering storm clouds flooded the streets. Thick fumes of exhaust filled the air. It blended in with the sleek, smoldering clouds of fog that enveloped the roadway. The ashen masses brought along with them a chilling front that made Jacob Davis shiver in his brown coat. “Damn weather.” It had started to pour out in thudding amounts of rain. Jacob squinted his eyes, and tried to make out the vehicles in front of him. Stalemate. He chuckled to himself. He had never been much of a chess player himself. Maybe if he could get past the graying hair first. “We're going to be stuck here for hours,” exclaimed a dark-haired woman that sat trembling next to him. She burred and shook from the biting cold. “I told you this was a bad idea.” Jacob glared at his wife. Sarah, such a kind soul, was stuck with him in the cramped car. “Don't worry, we'll get to him soon enough.” Jacob bit his lip. It had been a suffering of two hours stuck on the road. The only reason he and taken his car out was to fetch his son. “Sure of it.” Sarah ignored him and flicked her eyes to the window. The frozen window. Whatever moisture once laid on its glass had formed a sheet of ice on the layers. Must be winter coming early. The car spurted out more smoke fumes. Whenever the car started to do that, Jacob would always remember that he needed the engine and every single part of his car inspected. His impatience started to make his skin crawl. “Ethan.” “What?” Sarah asks. She grabbed a dry, messy rag from the counter and started to brush the blurry windshield. “Nothing, nothing.” Jacob kept his eyes on the direction he was moving in. Ever since the military station at Summercreek dropped explosives on the road, he had grown wary and on high alert. He didn't want to know why they would even do such a thing. “That better?” His wife finished clearing the once blurred out windshield. Jacob started to see the blinking red lights of the SUV in front of his car. “Yeah, thanks.” Jacob flipped on the car's radio, his impatience urging him to listen. He didn't want to listen to any music. Switch. No talk shows. Switch. He could care less about the weather at the moment. Switch. “What are you trying to find?” Suddenly, a sickening word left the radio. Riots. Sarah covered her hand onto his “Keep your eyes on the road, Jacob.” He nodded and went to lay back into his chair. Jacob's back ached from jogging the day before. Not to mention the weights he had pressured his arms to lift up and down for two hours. “You hearing this Sarah? Or am I going insane?” The terrified voice of Ronald Cleveland continued on: “The large riots are said to be a reaction to the force being used to detain those subjected to the disease,” Cleveland droned on. “An ongoing, yet vigorous, riot taking place is developing in New York... there have been more than twenty confirmed casualties.” Jacob grinned. Detain, sure, detain. He and Sarah knew what that word meant. Shot to death. Ever since the first hospitals were greeted by the aggressive strain of disease, those who were infected with the plague went on to slaughter unsuspecting others. It was all a mystery to Jacob, but his wife had other opinions. The night before she had come home from the Indianapolis City Hospital drenched in tiring sweat. She had gone to her bed and babbled on about how two nurses had been found with the disease and had been'' detained''. “Gotta be kidding me,” Jacob let his car race up as a good portion of the other cars in front of him to disperse. “They do this now?” Sarah watched and rolled her eyes. “Good for us.” He planted his shoe on the pedal. Jacob slammed down the pedal and rocketed through the road. The thought never crossed his mind of why they had loosened up. All he cared about now was about Ethan. He caught a whiff of his strong cologne and rolled down the window to his left. A thrust of cold air blasted into the car. The biting wind made his eyes tear up, but all he could care about was Ethan. His son, his only son for which he gave a damn about, and then there was that other someone ho he cared just as much for. “Kerry's supposed to be at that school volunteering.” “You know her and her scholarship,” Sarah said matter-of-factly. “The more hours she puts in, the better.” Jacob sighed. Her wrinkled up his face and rubbed the sides of his head. His daughter had graduated from college not long ago. Before the disease took hold, she had started whisking hours volunteering with that one blonde-haired paramedic. Lily? Lizzy? He couldn't recall her name. Jacob had warned her Kerry not to become too attached to that ''paramedic. Whatshername did not make his attitude move the slightest inch. Now as he sat on his leather car seat with three layers of clothing, he couldn't help but think. “J-Jacob!” Sarah shouted in a terrific, worried scream. Jacob's eyes split to the windshield. Oh shit. He swerved out of the way, although he still felt the rumble of a body connecting with the hood of his Chevy. He blinked twice, trying to make sure what he was seeing was true. And it was. They were there. Moaning and groaning with their diseased hands clawing at his car. “Jacob, go!” And he did. He pulled out of the avenue and left the crazies staggering behind in the fumes of exhaust. Jacob tried to speak to his way, just say something, but he couldn't. He never wanted to look into the milky eyes of a diseased person ever again. That was when he found himself accelerating down deep into the parking lot of Summercreek High School. The car rattled along the asphalt and soon shot into the misty air that had been doused like gasoline on a fire over the school. ---- He hadn't even blinked before leaving his fixed position. Joseph lunged at the metal door, trying in angst to get the door open. Locked. He pressed his hands on the lock, cursing at it as he launched a kick at it. Joseph glanced up to see Gordon. His friend was still there, but looking worried. Gordon flashed Joseph a look of somber in his hazel irises. The next moment, Gordon left the glass pane and disappeared into the thick blue mist that had formed outside. “What the hell's goin' on?” shouted Lyle as he barreled for the metal door. “Joseph?” Joseph rapidly blinked his eyes before letting go of the door lock. He was unsure of what he was doing. Or what he saw. “I—“ Before he could continue, something thumped against the door behind him. “Holy shit!” Lyle backed away, pointing an unsteady finger at what was behind Joseph. The glass pane. Joseph eerily turned around to see the bloodied face of a woman. Her face had grayed from disease. Her cracked lips suddenly slipped out a deep, haunting moan. The woman's eyes grew when something struck her from the mist. Her body loosened before sliding beneath view. That was when Joseph knew he had seen his friend. There was Gordon, yanking a shining blade from the crazie's head. “Open it, man!” Joseph nodded nervously, his hands finding their way to the door lock. He switched the bolts out, occasionally looking up to make sure Gordon was still there. And he was. Joseph released the last lock and shot the door off its hinges. When the crowd of refugees had gathered behind Lyle, they began to whisper. Some of them were on tired legs, wrapped up in blankets to keep warm from the chilly air in the gym. Most were happy to get up on their feet after being cramped up on the uncomfortable bleachers. Though none were prepared to see what they saw. Gordon crossed through the entrance, slipping on his own weariness. He was out of breath, and dropped his knife. As it clanged against the floor, he collapsed to the floor. “C-close it!” Joseph frantically set the door back until it closed with a satisfying clinging sound. He clicked the large padlock into place. He dared not to check out what lurked in the darkening outside. Joseph rested his back against the door and tried to catch his breath. Lyle's not to sure about what to think of it. The man looked like a soldier, but it was hard to tell in the faint lightning. He examined Gordon's tattered clothing, his gut feeling telling him that the man was not ''okay, and then he stopped at Gordon's thigh. It was caked with dripping blood. “He's shot.” As Gordon screamed in agony, Lyle turned around to divert his eyes to Lilian. “The man is shot!” Lilian was kneeling next to Eugene and packing up her equipment. She hadn't had time to zip up her medical pouch. Her attention was stuck to the downed man. She tucked in her pouch and turned to face a female nurse next to her, one of the few paramedics in the gym. As Lilian snagged up her stethoscope, she uttered two words. “I'll go.” Gordon relentlessly squirmed on the waxed gym floor while keeping a hand on his thigh. “It's burning!” He exclaimed once Lilian crouched beside him. She fished a hand into her pouch and got to work on checking the wound. There was no exit wound. She cursed. Lilian double-checked all sides of the thigh by flipping it over, much to Gordon's agony. “W-who shot you?” Gordon tried to respond, but his teeth had become glued to each other. When he started to scream through gritted teeth, he wriggled around uncontrollably in a struggle to relieve the sheering pain sensation. His eyes drifted up to Lilian. Help. “Heheh...” Eugene raised his drowsy head from his pillow. He had been listening in the whole time. His jaw hurt like he had been shot like Gordon had been. “I told you..” His words fell out his mouth. “The military...” Then, a set of moans rasped on outside behind Joseph. The metal door shook in place as diseased hands swarmed the glass pane. They growled and hissed. Sometimes they would let out wet, hissing sounds. Joseph's hand instinctively went for the door knob. He realized then that he had locked it. The knob started to turn erratically and forced his hand of it. Joseph spun around and left the door to the dead. He jogged over to a Gordon, who started to howl in pain. Joseph slid down to the floor and grabbed Gordon's arm. He tried to speak, but the words became stuck on his tongue. Joseph stared down at his friend with a look of pity and eased up his grip. Gordon's blonde hair had been caked with blood. There were red streaks that covered his head like cobwebs. “Not mine...” Gordon's words left him in breathless gasps. The next second, he went into a coughing fit. “Hey, hey,” Joseph spoke, “you're going to be okay. Got that?” Joseph looked up to see Lilian. She was looking uneasy. “Lilian?” Her eyes went white. “He has no exit wound,” she said with sadness. “The bullets are still in him.” “Bullets?” Joseph asked, looking puzzled. “He got shot more than once?” Lilian nodded. “Seems like it, but it's best we leave them in him since they aren't much to worry about.” She reached for Joseph's arm. “Put pressure on the injury.” Lilian unzipped her pouch and sorted through multiple tools. She placed her stethoscope in place and rested it into place. “Keep it pressed!” Dub, dub. She set the stethoscope down. A wave of ease hit her. She breathed in, and flipped Gordon on his side. She tried to find any possible place where there could be an exit wound. Nothing. “Okay—“ A horrible sucking noise came out from Gordon's thigh. “More pressure!” Lilian rolled Gordon over and on his back. She dug two fingers into the pressure points of his arms. Blood continued to trickle down from the wound, dampening the uniform with a crimson tint. “What's his name?” Lilian hollered, her eyes stapled to Gordon's chest. She scanned for his breaths and tried to make sure his condition wasn't crashing. “His name, Joseph, his name!” “Gordon,” Joseph stammered, his throat quenched like a prune. “Gordon Black.” “Gordon's going into shock.” And with that, Lilian dragged Gordon across the floor and past the crowd of refugees huddled together. The bullets had passed through the flesh. Good thing he has thick skin. Lilian shook out the thought of the shrapnel lodged into meat. A miracle. She went behind the refugees and paused next to Eugene. “No pillows to spare, Don.” Lilian pressed her hand on his pressure points. Her eyes wandered over to the nurse she had left with Eugene. “Shot in the thigh, barely nicked the femoral artery.” “''They shot 'em!'' The military is dooming us all!” Eugene shouted through closed teeth. “Close that hole in your face.” The nurse sighed. “I'm telling you Lilian, we don't have the supplies to run this place.” Her face was baked from the sun and sprinkled with freckles. With auburn hair, Kerry Davis went over to help out with the wounded soldier. “We just don't.” Lilian rolled her eyes. “''We'' use what we got, okay?” The two applied pressure to Gordon while Kerry swooped down to Lilian's pouch for a set of fresh gauge. Lilian could feel sweat scouting down her face. Another lightning bolt rang outside like a dinner bell. At the same moment, the front entrance to the gymnasium burst open. What followed was something worse than the crazed people. A barrage of barking soldiers emerged from the halls with their guns flashing. They shuffled past each other and two shakily lodged together a lock on the front doors. The soldiers looked like a nervous bunch. Most had worried faces, while others had been stricken with absolute terror. “Form up!” Malcolm stood outside the group of soldiers. He took a deep breath through the humid insides of his gas mask. “Position yourselves at every corner of every square inch of this place. I want boots standing on boots if you have to.” Malcolm yanked off his gas mask and scratched his fuzzy black stubble. He watched the soldiers step over each others' feet and shift to their newly made posts. His thoughts raced over what laid ahead for the military station. Had taken over Menster's platoon not too long before he saw the sergeant dangling from the arms of a thug. Lyle. A bitter feeling stomped on Malcolm's insides. “Damn.” He surveyed the dim lighted gymnasium. Could use some candles. A unit of chattering soldiers jogged by him. They divided themselves into smaller units and went to cover each individual square inch of the gymnasium. Malcolm suspected that the soldiers were frightened. As they galloped across the gym, Malcolm could see them running with shaky legs. Something only fear could do to a man. Malcolm suspended his gas mask below his neck. He covered the body of his assault rifle and gave out a deep sigh, sounding more like a dying animal than a well-kept man of his height. With the other groups of soldiers rushing over to count the dead bodies in the cafeteria, Malcolm had decided it would be best not to let the civilians stuck in the gymnasium without help. He slipped on the gas mask. The blast of vapor pulled back his eyes and left him dazed for a moment. He breathed in. Sharon. Malcolm gulped, his hands weakly pressing against his gun. Amen, Sharon. Issues Category:Step by Step Category:Category:Step by Step Issues Category:Issues